Probing the Depths of Evangelization

Dr Martin points out that spreading the Gospel is not the only form of evangelisation. We must work to build a truly Catholic culture as well.

From Crisis

By Regis Martin, STD

Public expression of the faith is ordered to the evangelical imperative to convert, not just this or that person, but all peoples.

As necessary as the evangelical imperative is to the life of the Church, since without it the Gospel withers and dies, it is not enough simply to proclaim the Good News. For all that the world needs to hear the message of Jesus Christ, merely doing so does not exhaust the possibilities of bringing Christ to the world. There is another way, which is not at variance with planting the Gospel seed one row at a time but entirely complementary to sharing Christ with others. And that is to engage the larger dimension of human culture, which is the effort to give public expression to the things we believe.

The aim here is not simply the salvation of this or that person but the salvation of an entire world, which God is equally eager to welcome and wishes thereby to include in the overall economy of redemption. And the reason for this is surely obvious, which is to make it easier for men and women to be good, to grow and to thrive in an environment that not only allows for a life of sanctity but positively encourages it. Why not, in other words, set about making a world where the attractions of virtue are, at the very least, as strong and ubiquitous as those presently in favor of vice? An order of grace, no less, impregnating the existing order of nature in such a way as to suffuse all of reality with a sense of the sacred—and thus enable even the average and mediocre among us to turn to God. Why shouldn’t society want to sustain the lives of all who wish to remain steadfast in the practice of their faith?

Now, it needs to be said that both modes are necessary and important, that neither one is in competition with the other nor may safely dispense with the other. There can be no culture of life, for example, where babies in the womb are given constitutional protection, unless such reverence for the poorest and most vulnerable is tethered to a God who is seen as Lord and Giver of all life. Conversion of heart is a prerequisite for the conquest of a culture. How else are we to ensure the sacredness of the conjugal bond, from which proximate source human life springs into being, unless provision be made for a God who is ultimately responsible for that bond?

God is not, therefore, undeserving of a place at the same table as our friends and neighbors. Did He not, after all, fashion our first parents, Adam and Eve, as beings made for each other—and with whom He confected a union intended to propagate an entire race made in His image and likeness? And because the religious connection linking the soul to God is what finally ties a culture together, it seems both natural and necessary that its maintenance depend on a certain public orthodoxy professed by all.

Again, as I say, both belong in the same mix, the first being primary—impinging as it does upon the interior life of each soul with whom, from all eternity, God longs for the most intimate and unending communion. “God was in love,” declared Ven. Fulton Sheen, “the telling of which became creation.” And thus, we remain so many unique and unrepeatable instances of His love.  

Of course, our knowledge of that saving truth, plus our willingness to live it out, is dependent upon God actually speaking His Word to us, which He does unmistakably in the Scripture and Tradition of the Church. Knowing our sublime status as children of the Father, coupled with our surpassing dignity as brothers and sisters of the Lord, really does depend, therefore, upon the planting of so many evangelical seeds.   
The other mode, however, which is no less a mandate issued by God, aspires to give corporate and exterior expression to God’s loving design, midwifing a culture in which everything conspires to make men want to configure their lives to Christ. To incentivize, as it were, as many opportunities as possible to become holy and thus get to Heaven more easily. But never, it must be said, at the expense of, or as a substitute for, that basic evangelical witness, which radiates out from the Pierced and Crucified God as He hung lifeless upon the Cross. We shall never succeed, I am saying, in raising up an order of the public life where virtue and decency can flourish if we haven’t first planted the seed of the Gospel from one soul to the next.

Let that be a given, a presupposition, without which we are left simply spinning wheels that go nowhere.

Nevertheless, door-to-door evangelization is not enough. We are not Mormons, after all, who conduct our lives on porches and parlors, hectoring perfect strangers about the Good Book. At some point, we have simply got to engage the question of culture. In fact, as the Church herself has long insisted, it remains an intrinsic implication of what it means to be Christian, which is to say, sacramental—to wit, an outward sign instituted by Christ to give grace. And can there be any outpouring of grace greater than Christ Himself, on whose very Person the Church was founded in order to make Him present to others?  

Thus did the Apostle Philip put the question to Jesus, “Master, show us the Father, then we shall be content.” It was the one question to which no answer was more anxiously sought. And not by Philip alone; nor by any of the other disciples, either. Indeed, it reveals the deepest, most driving desire of all, which is to see the face of God. A perfectly legitimate question, it would seem, to put to someone who clearly has inside knowledge on the matter. Such a lot of time Jesus seems to be spending in the company of His Father! I mean, He’s got this persisting habit of constantly disappearing into these quiet, offbeat places where, sequestered from the world with its distractions and noise, He is free to speak His mind and heart to His Father. 

So, what does Jesus say to Philip and the others? What does He say to us, who pine no less than they to see the veils rent asunder and the face of the living God suddenly laid bare before us? “To see me is to see the Father,” He emphatically tells Philip. “So how can you ask, ‘Where is the Father?’ Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?” (John 14:8-27).

There are depths here, depths whose unearthing may tell us a great many things—and not only about evangelization but about culture as well. Stay tuned…